Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Hackers linked to Russia’s government tried to target the websites of
two right-wing U.S. think-tanks, suggesting they were broadening their
attacks in the build-up to November elections, Microsoft said.

The software giant said it thwarted the attempts last week by taking
control of sites that hackers had designed to mimic the pages of The
International Republican Institute and The Hudson Institute. Users were
redirected to fake addresses where they were asked to enter usernames
and passwords.

The International Republican Institute has a roster of high-profile
Republican board members, including Senator John McCain of Arizona who
has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s interactions with Russia,
and Moscow’s rights record.

The Hudson Institute, another
conservative group, has hosted discussions on topics including
cybersecurity, according to Microsoft. It has also examined the rise of
kleptocracy, especially in Russia and has been critical of the Russian
government, the New York Times reported.

Hudson President and CEO Kenneth Weinstein has been tweeting about the attack, noting that the think tank's Kleptocracy Initiative got them targeted by Russia's GRU:

Think-Tanks’Lawyer ( to highlight the legislative impact think-tanks can have )

Think-Tanks’Foundation ( to promote, via a foundation, the sustainable development of the think-tank land ).

Think-Tanks'Media says its goal is to "give you an overview of the daily work of more than 2,000 think tanks across the world, and to introduce you to best of it."

In fact, it has already launched Think-Tanks'Guide, which aims to be the most comprehensive and up-to-date think tank directory. Additionally, it has launched Think-Tanks'Work, a search engine of think tank reports.

We’ve [Predata] helped global organizations anticipate the risk of violence by
militant groups, multinational corporations anticipate the risk posed by
government regulatory actions and global macro hedge funds gain
evidence for asset positions, and to anticipate the risk of large market
moves.

Recently, Predata used its platform to predict a major
appreciation in the Japanese yen one week before it happened. Using
Predata anticipatory signals, the think tank CSIS correctly predicted
the last seven ballistic missile test launches by North Korea. We also
helped a global energy company’s public affairs team anticipate a major
reputational risk to their brand.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently announced a renewed partnership with Predata providing its global geopolitical risk signals to help Beyond Parallel's experts (at CSIS) assess Korean unification prospects and related geopolitical issues.

CSIS notes that Beyond Parallel's funding comes from the think tank's Korea Chair, as well as the Brzezinski Institute of of Geostrategy, The Korea Foundation, and the UniKorea Foundation.

CSIS also says that it has partnered with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to use unclassified geospatial imagery and data to produce "new, timely, and accurate reporting on the North Korean economy and society, infrastructure, and border activities."

In related news, it was recently reported that South Korea is the country spending the most to influence Washington.

Monday, August 13, 2018

Mr. [Rand] Paul was the only lawmaker on the trip, which was financed by the Cato Institute, a leading libertarian research organization in Washington. He was accompanied by Peter Goettler, Cato's president and chief executive, and Don Huffines, a Texas state senator who was chairman of Mr. Paul's presidential campaign in the state.

On Russia, the Cato Institute encourages
policymakers to coordinate with leaders in Moscow on issues like
nonproliferation and ending the Syrian civil war. Its policy handbook
also advocates for replacing current American sanctions on Russia with
ones that aim to impede the modernization of Russia's military.

Khristine
Brookes, a spokeswoman from the Cato Institute, said that it did not
set up the meetings with any of the Russian government officials, but it
did set up meetings with other non-government organizations and booked
sight-seeing trips.

Here is what the think tank's policy handbook says about US relations with Russia.

Friday, August 10, 2018

Heritage Action for America, a political sister organization of the
Heritage Foundation, has spent years getting Republicans riled up in
policy fights. Now the group is trying something new: getting GOP
lawmakers elected.

Founded in 2010, Heritage Action spent its early years stirring
controversy as it pushed GOP leaders and lawmakers to take a more
combative approach in negotiations with former President
Barack Obama,
a Democrat. But with President
Donald Trump,
a Republican, in office, the group is recalibrating its strategy
and, for the first time, is getting significantly involved in
congressional elections.

“The tactics have to change when you [Republicans] have the House, the Senate and the White House,”
Tim Chapman,
executive director of Heritage Action, said in an interview Monday.

“We
have got a very good apparatus built for stopping bad legislation and
for holding people accountable. We’re not quite as effective as we’d
like to be at passing good pieces of legislation,” he said.

To
change that, Heritage Action plans to spend $2.5 million, starting in
early September, to help Republicans win in 14 congressional districts.
The group plans to use its money on direct mail and digital ads
promoting its view of how the tax law passed by Republicans last
December is benefiting voters there. Additional money raised could be
used on television ads, said the group’s vice president, Jessica
Anderson.

The hope is that the campaign efforts will create allies on Capitol Hill
and give Heritage Action ways to reward lawmakers, not just criticize
them when the group views their voting records as not conservative
enough.

In related news, Heritage Action has created a "pro-Kavanaugh activist toolkit to secure the Supreme Court for decades to come," according to Right Wing Watch.

In January last year, online censors shut down its website and deleted
the social media accounts of several of its [Unirule's] members. Four months later,
the institute was barred from holding an academic seminar during the
Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, with staff members arriving at their
former office one morning to find the front door locked and the lift
button to their floor disabled.

Unirule moved to its current address inside a
gated residential community in the west of Beijing in October after
being forced to vacate an office building in the city’s downtown area.

The organisation, like other liberal academics
and opinion leaders, has been under increased pressure since President
Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012 and began his programme of
tightening controls on ideology and clamping down on dissent.

In related news, the New York Times has reported that Xu Zhangrun, a law professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, "took a big risk" when he "delivered the fiercest denunciation yet from a Chinese academic of Mr. Xi's hard-line policies." Professor Xu reportedly wrote an essay that appeared on the website of Unirule.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Here is more from a Politico piece entitled "On Cleanup Duty After Trump Diplomatic Blowups":

President Donald Trump’s top national security and foreign policy
leaders declared their allegiance Tuesday to the global order that U.S.
diplomacy fashioned and reinforced over the decades — just a week after
Trump upended that order in Helsinki.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
completed two days of meetings with Australia's foreign and defense
ministers at the Hoover Institution, a citadel of the foreign policy
elite that’s become increasingly dismayed by Trump’s repeated slams at
NATO, widening trade war and last week’s private meeting with Russian
President Vladimir Putin.

A top aide to Mattis said the choice to hold this week's meetings at
Hoover, where many foreign policy and national security veterans of
Republican and Democratic administrations are in residence, was made
months ago and was not intended to send any signal beyond that both the
United States and Australia are Pacific powers.

The Hoover Institution was founded in 1919 by future President
Herbert Hoover, who played a leading role in the American reconstruction
of war Europe after both world wars. The think tank is a repository for
some of the most exhaustive records on Nazi propaganda and the Cold War
and has served as an intellectual incubator for some of the top
diplomats and national security leaders over the years.

Working just a few steps from where Mattis and Pompeo held their
meetings, for example, are leading GOP figures such as George Shultz,
Ronald Reagan's secretary of state, andCondoleezza Rice, the
national security adviser and secretary of state under George W. Bush.
Its visiting research fellows over the years have included former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and, most recently, retired Army Lt. Gen H.R. McMaster, who
served as Trump's national security adviser until earlier this year.
McMaster was among the Trump administration's toughest critics of
Russia.

The article goes on to note that Michael McFaul, who is on a list on names of people that the Russian government wants to question in connection to unspecified criminal allegations, is also a Hoover scholar. Here is Hoover's statement supporting McFaul.

Monday, August 6, 2018

Two distinguished historians at the University of Virginia have resigned from its public policy center following the school’s recent hiring of a former aide to President Donald Trump, a decision that has also spurred protests among students and faculty.

William I. Hitchcock and Melvyn P. Leffler announced their departures from the Miller Center of Public Affairs on Monday to protest Marc Short, Trump’s former legislative affairs director, receiving a paid fellowship at the think tank that also studies the presidency. The professors blasted Short’s fellowship as running counter to the center’s values.

“By associating himself with an administration that shows no respect for truth, he has contributed to the erosion of civil discourse and democratic norms that are essential to democratic governance and that are central to the mission of the Miller Center,” read a letter shared by Hitchcock on Twitter.

William Antholis, the center’s director and CEO, said in a statement he
was saddened by their departure but that Short’s appointment would help
promote the think tank’s goals.

From 2004-2014, Mr. Antholis was managing director of the Brookings Institution, a think tank that has been embroiled in various controversies for years. Here is a statement from Antholis.

A National Review piece entitled "A Baseless Attack on Marc Short" is on the UVA think tank's website. Slate says the two professors were right to leave.

Politico asks if the UVA drama is a warning to Trump officials looking for new gigs, including at think tanks.

Friday, August 3, 2018

Nahal Toosi of Politico: "Dear People Who Run Think Tanks: Your panel discussions would get more attention (and actually be of greater quality) if you rely more on moderators who aren't afraid to ask hard questions. Like reporters."

Thursday, August 2, 2018

American Enterprise Institute (AEI) President Arthur Brooks is calling for a "politics cleanse" in a new op-ed in the New York Times. Here is an excerpt:

Have you felt less popular lately than
you once were? Are people avoiding you? Are your party invitations
getting lost in the mail? Maybe it’s your breath.

Or, just maybe, it’s because you can’t stop talking about politics.

What to do? Start with a politics cleanse: For two weeks — maybe over
your August vacation — resolve not to read, watch or listen to anything
about politics. Don’t discuss politics with anyone. When you find
yourself thinking about politics, distract yourself with something else.
(I listen toBach cantatas,
but that’s not for everybody.) This is hard to do, of course, but not
impossible. You just have to plan ahead and stand firm. Think of it as
ideological veganism. On the one hand, your friends will think you’re a
little wacky. On the other hand, you’ll feel superior to them.

Think Tank Watch should note that Arthur Brooks is stepping down from his think tank perch next summer. Some say that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), who is retiring from Congress, would be the "perfect fit" to succeed Brooks. The job, which pays around $1 million, would give Ryan nearly five times what he makes now.

Here is more from The Guardian about the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a UK-based think tank established in 1955 by admirers of the free-market economist Friedrich Hayek:

A rightwing thinktank has been offering potential US donors access to
government ministers and civil servants as it raises cash for research
to support the free-trade deals demanded by hardline Brexiters,
according to an investigation.

The director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) was secretly
recorded telling an undercover reporter that funders could get to know
ministers on first-name terms and that his organisation was in “the Brexit influencing game”.

Mark Littlewood claimed the IEA could make introductions to ministers
and said the thinktank’s trade expert knew Boris Johnson, Michael Gove,
David Davis and Liam Fox well.

The IEA chief was also recorded suggesting potential US donors could
fund and shape “substantial content” of research commissioned by the
thinktank and that its findings would always support the argument for
free-trade deals.

The investigation, undertaken in May and June, also revealed the
thinktank had already provided access to a minister for a US
organisation.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a conservative think tank
and advocacy group, emerged as a political force in the Lone Star State
more than a decade ago. While its influence was largely contained to
Texas for many years, TPPF has found an eager audience in the White
House and is now flexing its muscle on the national stage.

Founded almost 30 years ago, TPPF is a Koch-funded research and
advocacy group that touts itself as a defender of liberty and free
enterprise. By no means a strictly libertarian group, the group also
attracts widespread support from social conservatives, counting former
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as two of its
most prominent allies. [Sen. Ted Cruz joined the organization as a senior fellow in March 2010 where he helped launch the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies. In 2012, Cruz won election to the U.S. Senate.]

From the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to the
Department of Energy (DOE), former TPPF officials are now filling top
roles in the Trump administration and are working to promote pro-fossil
fuel and anti-environment policies at the national level.

The Trump administration, in fact, has already turned into a
revolving door for TPPF officials. At least eight TPPF senior staff
members have joined or were recruited by the administration. One former
TPPF employee has already served two stints in the Department of Energy
under Perry’s leadership and another foundation employee returned to
TPPF after a brief stint in President Donald Trump’s State Department.

Through its advocacy of far-right policy positions and its fundraising prowess, TPPF has joined the Heritage Foundation
and other well-established national think tanks as the go-to policy
shops for the president and his band of ultra-conservatives. In recent years, TPPF started co-branding reports and conferences
with the Heritage Foundation and other high-profile groups associated
with the State Policy Network (SPN) that added to its clout.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation was founded
in 1989 by James Leininger, a Christian conservative who became
extremely wealthy by selling hospital beds. By the early 1990s, he
emerged as one of Texas’ top political donors, spending millions on
conservative candidates.

About Me

Think Tank Watch is a one-stop-shop for learning and thinking about think tanks. It covers domestic and global think tank news, gossip, personnel, reports, studies, and pretty much anything else related to think tanks. Think Tank Watch can be found cruising the mean streets of "Think Tank Row" and beyond, attending scores of think tank events each year. Since its founding in 2012, Think Tank Watch has become the #1 source of think tank news and gossip in the world. Questions, comments, and tips can be sent to:
info (at) thinktankwatch.com